Walking North

Looking forward to walking in cooler weather. It's hot, hot, hot and walking in Birkenstocks because shoes are too hot gives me blisters. Yesterday I walked for forty minutes and saw almost nobody at all. Of the handful of people outside during the day, I was the only one walking. I could have been the unsuspecting stranger in  one of those eerily-deserted-town films who stops for gas (though I should have been carrying a gas can to make this image work) only to find that the entire town has been infected by a terrible virus and everyone has become flesh-eating zombies. Needless to say, I never walk at night. But it's not a zombie virus, just a case of too much sun and not enough water. So I'm walking north, but I'll be back before the antidote to desert conditions has been found and get back to wandering alone through the neighborhood.

Here's one way to respond to too much sun and not enough water: be a cactus, all plump and fleshy on the inside, extra scary and prickly on the outside, and then, just when your type of pollinator buzzes by, pop out an outrageously gorgeous and seductive blossom.